By: Diane Shired
Meaning of FTTH – “Fiber To the Home” is a Passive
Optical Network (PON) which brings last mile fiber cabling
and signals to the user. FTTH is reliable and secure and has been
around 1980s. High speed data, voice and high
quality video is what everyone want today. The architecture is not as
important as long as the service is fast and dependable.
The equipment at the head office is interfaced with
the public switched telephone network and is then connected to Ethernet
interfaces. The signals are combined onto a single fiber using various
wavelength multiplexers (such as: voice/data, frame relay, CATV, T1,
etc.) and sent to the end user via a passive optical splitter.
“Verizon is currently in the process of deploying and
testing FTTP (Fiber To The
Premises) to some subscribers. This service provided by Verizon is
entitled "FiOS," and is planned to offer three package levels: 5 Mbit/s
downstream / 2 Mbit/s upstream, 15 Mbit/s downstream /2 Mbit/s upstream, and
30 Mbit/s downstream / 5 Mbit/s upstream." [Verizon
Communications]
"Fiber to the home and optical broadband, 2002, predicts
substantial market growth in the coming years. Even today, the number of
households with access to FTTH technology has almost quadrupled since last
year, from 19,400 to 72,000 homes nationwide, and the numbers will keep
scaling upward until they reach between 800,000 and 1.4 million homes by
September 2004. Render conducted 49 interviews with vendors and other
experts and conducted 241 phone calls with representatives of various FTTH
projects in the U.S. and Canada. And to get a sense of market awareness,
Render conducted a survey of key FTTH markets, such as large housing
developers, public utility companies and incumbent and competitive local
exchange carriers. Even with strong numbers, the applications for which
we'll want (and need) fiber are fuzzy. "If history is any guide, some of the
most important future broadband applications will be ones that are not yet
on the list of conceived possibilities," [A new report by Render
Vanderslice & Associates]
